To what extent is the international community to blame for the

problems sub Saharan Africa has faced since decolonization?

Following World War II, more than 40 African nations in the Sub-Saharan Africa
regions had gained independence from their European rulers, which took place
throughout the 1950s-1970s. But after decolonization, African states suffered through
most of the worlds problems, including poverty, ethnic divisions, civil wars, and bad
governance. For the first time since 1989, Africa is the worlds most war-torn region,
based on Stockholm Intl. Research Peace Institute.
Paul Collier stated in an interview that 1 billion people are living in the poorest
countries, which are mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are more factors that
influenced the independence of many African nations beside decolonization. In this
essay I am going to examine the international communitys involvement in some
conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa after decolonization, meaning, external political
power or any other influences beside each imperialist power, and particularly
referencing to Western powers. We will look at the most dangerous conflict in the
Sub-Saharan Africa: wars and political violence, since it also leads to more conflicts
for the states involved (e.g. poverty), although there might be overlapping of
socioeconomic conflicts. First, I will introduce the role of the Cold War in the process
of decolonization and after, while using examples from different countries, then I will
see a number of civil wars in African territories, focusing on the civil war in
Democratic Republic of Congo, and examine how the foreign intervention takes
action towards the conflicts.
Decolonization of Africa was greatly associated with the Cold War, a political tension
after World War II between the US and the Soviet Union, since political power has
shifted from Western Europe to the two new superpowers that lasted from 19471991. The main cause of decolonization was not the Cold War, but rather WWII (in
which imperial powers needed fund rebuilding their countries after the war), and it
was useful because the US wanted to end colonization to limit the powers of Western
Europe (and spread democracy), so they were able to give massive aid and convince
them to decolonize. The Soviet Union also wanted to limit the powers of Western
Europe, but they wanted to spread communism.
But the aftermath of the Cold War is comparable to the increase of political violence
in Africa, in which 400 wars took place in the Sub-Saharan region from 1990-2009.
Looking back, African nations are fueled with ethnic tensions that are caused by many
factors (arbitrary borders, racist divide in political powers, etc). With a corrupt
government and military, many of these ethnic groups started guerilla independence
wars. This is where the Cold War was partly responsible, because these wars were
initially fuelled by the two superpowers, depending on if they are allies with the US or
Soviet Union. Based on the World Policy Institutes Research findings, the US
delivered over $1.5 billion worth of weaponry to Africa. Top US arm clients - Liberia,
Somalia, the Sudan, and DRC - have turned out to be the top countries of the 1990s in
terms of violence and economic collapse. The superpowers rivalry was also acted out
in the Sub-Saharan Africa, for example in Angolan Civil War, which was a civil
conflict beginning in 1975-2002. It was a war between two former liberation
movements struggling for power of the country, MPLA and UNITA. The USSR and
Cuba were supporting and arming Angolan government while the USA and South

Africa (who initially got in to counter Chinese involvement in Angola) supported the
Savimbis UNITA rebels, because the US saw Savimbi as an ally to oppose Sovietsupported, non-democratic governments. It shows that although states received aid
and support from the superpowers, it comes with hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of military assistance which reinforced violence and repressive security by
governments and which made worse of the situation of civil wars in Sub-Saharan
Africa.
After the Cold War, it was Western corporations who started selling weapons and
buying resources from areas that either the government or the rebels controlled,
fuelling more ethnic conflicts. There were also authoritarian states that used violence
to deal address democracy (which became an issue of the Western world after the
Cold War), such as South Africa (until the end of apartheid in 1994). There was also
no more reason for Sub-Saharan Africa to get support, as there were no more political,
strategic, or economic motives from the superpowers countries to do so. For example,
Somalia and Ethiopia was the center of the struggle for influence because of it is close
to the Persian Gulf and borders the Red Sea with its oil traffic and strategic
importance for introducing or countering naval blockades. The Soviet Union switched
from supplying aid to Somalia Ethiopia, which was previously supported by the US.
The US then decided to supply Somalia from the 1970s-1988, in exchange for use of
Somali bases and political influence. There were conflicts between the countries that
led to the Ethio-Somali War, which during that time both regions military and
weaponry by the two superpowers. However, after the Cold War ended, the two
nations were abandoned and left suffering without support in the aftermath of war.
The end of the Cold War also led to terrorism, where the loss of external financial
support forced armed groups to find other ways to sustain their operations, including
the trafficking of small arms. During the first decade after the end of the Cold War
(between 1990-2002), Africa recorded 6,177 casualties from 296 acts of terrorism
based on the USSD (2003) report.
Following the topic of civil wars (some of which are still ongoing in Sub-Saharan
Africa), we are going to see some examples in which foreign intervention plays a
primary part in them. The ongoing civil war in DRC was speculated to derive from
the First Congo War, when rebel leader Kabila led an invasion of Zaire (DRC) to
replace decades-long dictator, Mobutu. Ultimately, the reason for this crisis was of
Mobutus bad governance of holding on to the authoritarian form of state and not
reforming to democratization, and the ethnic tensions between the native tribes of
Zaire and the Tutsis that emigrated from Rwanda. Kabila, who was a long time
opponent of the Mobutu government, lead the AFDL, a rebel group that was both a
Zairian rebel movement and had some influence from Rwanda.
The US government apparently had implemented US policies in dealing with the
conflict in Congo, although ultimately it has been proven to fail. According to major
findings from World Policy Institute, the U.S. prolonged the rule of Zairian dictator
Mobutu by providing more than $300 million in weapons and $100 million in military
training. Mobutu then used that U.S.-supplied arsenal to repress his own people and
plunder his nations economy for three decades, until Kabila took over, and evidently the
Clinton administration offered military support and a new training plan with armed
forces.

After Kabila took over, he also implemented bad governance much like Mobutu and failed
to bring autonomy for minority groups. This caused the two brigades of the new
Congolese army to rebel against the government and start the Second Congo War.
Meanwhile, the US still continues to support DRC in terms of military while failing to
engage in humanitarian interventions or promote non-violent forms of engagement.
Based on the same findings, U.S. military transfers in the form of direct government-togovernment weapons deliveries, commercial sales, and International Military Education
and Training (IMET) to the states directly involved have totaled more than $125 million
since the end of the Cold War. But as it is actively fuelling the militaries, the U.S. devoted
only 0.09% of GNP to international development assistance, the lowest proportion of all
developed countries (1997). U.S. development aid to all of sub-Saharan Africa dropped to
just $700 million in recent years. It is evident that DRC is still suffering meaning that
these policies did not succeed.
Based on the arguments presented above, one thing is certain: the international
community plays a significant role in the shaping of Sub-Saharan Africa after
decolonization. From examining the Cold War, it has been stated that the reason for
major conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa was not because of external influences, but because
of already existing factors that goes back to the history of colonization. But, the actions of
these superpower countries made the tension and conflict worse. In fact, they encouraged
violence in those countries for their own political gains, resulting in more problems for
the African countries involved. In examining the civil wars, again, the original reason was
not because of external influences, but rather bad governance (which can be debated as it
is a broad subject). But the USs actions to prolong it made the conflict worse. Therefore,
the international communitys involvement based on how it handled the conflicts not to
make them better, but to make them worse.

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%20in%20Civil%20Wars.pdf